Travel Dates: 7/12-7/13
From West Memphis, it seemed only logical to continue on to original recipe Memphis…. so we did. Though neither of us are big Elvis fans, it seemed only right to make a quick salute to Graceland before chugging along any further. Not far from there, we began to head back Northward, cruising through Nashville and on into Kentucky. Having journeyed a bit further the previous day than originally planned, we arrived at our next destination, Mammoth Cave, a bit early which gave us time to hike around and explore some of the local flora and fauna before sundown. This ended up working out well as the heavy storm systems which had previously been tailing us caught up during the night and thoroughly compensated for the ample nice weather we had been graced with prior to that point. It took our combined weight and every firmly planted stake we had to keep our tent from floating away. 
Fortunately, cave systems are inherently underground so no amount of downpour could disrupt our agenda for the morning. Mammoth Cave, the most extensive cave system on Earth, lies underneath hill country and weaves carefully together within about a 36 square mile area. There are roughly 365 miles of surveyed passages with geologists estimating that there could easily be another 600 miles still undiscovered. Though it would take dozens trips to truly explore the majority of the passageways, we felt fairly accomplished with the 3 miles we managed to traverse between two different hikes. The caves offer everything from Native American artifacts and waterfalls to drip formations (think Lurray Caverns) and crawl spaces like the aptly named “Fat Man’s Misery.” 
It was also entertaining to reflect on a particular moment when the trail guides shut off all the lights to truly experience the natural pitch black of the cave and a couple dozen cell phones and digital cameras promptly lit the darkness back up. Oh, the digital age….
- The Carpenter
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